Today we very often see great American writers recognized worldwide, but we don’t always see a great Arabic writer recognized worldwide. Naguib Mahfouz was an amazing writer and he brought great pride to the Arabic people. After winning the Nobel Prize in 1988 Mahfouz gained a great number of admirers, not only in Egypt but worldwide.
Naguib Mahfouz is one of the most famous writers of the Arabic speaking language. Mahfouz is also one of the most widely read and respected authors in Egypt. While alive, Mahfouz was largely responsible for importing non-native form into his writing. During the 1960’s Mahfouz was known as an innovator and in fact is still known for it today. He was also known for many talents such as fine instinct, for discovering fears, prejudices, and suspicions of his people, and then he would serve them back in his writing. Many people believe that Mahfouz was a master of allegory and keen observer of human nature and politics. His pieces were both profound and popular, he was distinctively egyptian but yet universal. Mahfouz embodies the chaotic human anthill of life possible, and this portrayed in his writing.
Naguib Mahfouz was born on December 11, 1911 into a large Arabic family and was the youngest of seven. His father was a merchant of middle class and his mother was a teacher at a children’s school. Mahfouz grew up in the Al-Jamaliyya district which was the heart of the old city. The small district lies beyond the historic university of Al-azhar and the mausoleum of the prophet's grandson. The city was home to many respectable families which lived above shops and small businesses. This small but lively world would later on be the setting for many of Mahfouz’s works of art.
Throughout high school Mah...
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...te around 100 short piece stories. Besides Mahfouz’s books he also wrote 30 screenplays and several plays. Mahfouz made many self accomplishments within his own writing but he also made accomplishments in the Arab world. In 1988 Mahfouz’s Cario Modern won the Nobel Prize. The book was the fifth novel overall and second to be set in the 20th-century Egypt. The story was very popular and captured Mahfouz in a fiery youthful stage in his career. He was the first Arab writer to receive a Nobel Prize and the Arab world responded with nothing less than pride and admiration. The award showed great recognition of the achievements of Arabic literature and the people of Cario were overjoyed. Almost ten years after winning the Nobel Prize Mahfouz was yet again recognized for his great writing. In 1996 the Naguib Mahfouz Medal of Literature was established for Arabic writers
Ibn Munqidh, Usama. "From Memoirs." McNeill, William and Marilyn Robinson Waldman. The Islamic World. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973. 184-206.
Joyce, James. “Araby”. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Eds. R.V. Cassill and Richard Bausch. Shorter Sixth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000. 427 - 431.
To understand the depiction of the Arab Muslim woman in William Beckford’s Vathek and in its contemporary Oriental fictions, we need, at the beginning, to trace her development in the Western fiction long before the 18th century. This chapter examines the representations of Arab Muslim woman in Western literary texts , covering the period from the eleventh century to the seventeenth century ,and examines how these representations pave the way to her representation in the eighteenth century, and to what extent Vathek’s women can be recognized in them.
Professor Morris Rossabi was born in Egypt and researched throughout the Middle East. He earned his PhD in East and Central Asian history from Columbia University in 1970. He received an honorary doctorate from National Mongolian University in 2009. He is fluent in an array of languages such as: Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, French, and German. As well literate in Italian, Latin, Manchu, Mongol, Persian, Russian, and Uyghur.
Al-Nawawi, Y. (2004). Sharḥ al-Nawawī ʻalá Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim [Explanation of Al-Nawawi on Saheeh Muslim]. Saudia Arabia: Al-Rushd Library
“His people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence-forces that continue to threaten them even today” (Hower). Khaled Hosseini’s novels have brought many of his readers a different perspective of Afghanistan. Many people after reading Hosseini’s books start to notice this place more and have sympathy feelings rather negative views about it. Usually people believe the media’s information that conveys about Afghanistan as a poverty place but does not specify why they live in this conditions and how those states affect their everyday life. In the two novels The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, the author Khaled Hosseini wrote the political events that happen in Afghanistan and show how those events affected Afghans’ lives in order to show his personal values of political events and humanitarianism. Khaled Hosseini uses his and other Afghan’s personal experience to send out his mission statement to his readers. Hosseini said that his message was to get his readers be a part of “the mission of [his] foundation to reach out and help people who are exactly like the characters in [his] books” (Wrenn). Across the globe, people started to give a helping hand when they start to read Hosseini’s novels.
Writing Women's Worlds is some stories on the Bedouin Egyptian people. In this book, thwe writer Lia Adu-Lughod's stories differ from the conventional ones. While reading, we discover the customs and values of the Bedouin people.
Stone, Harry. "Araby" and the Writings of James Joyce. N.p.: n.p., n.d. EBSCO. Web. .
Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006), in his short story “Zaabalawi,” depicts the eponymous sheikh as a spiritual entity. Along his journey to find Zaabalawi, the main character, who remains unnamed throughout, notices many of modern Egyptian society’s flaws. Mahfouz’s main statement is that because religion is no longer held in importance to the point where it is absent in Egypt, such corruptions in the social and political spheres have taken place. The main journey also indicates that, in order to better society and move forward, the people must undergo a similar search for God. Nostalgic views of the past will only affect this progress in a paralytic manner.
He presents the themes and elements of the pre-Islamic society, including its tribal culture, economic culture, religious background, prominence of poetry (how the Qur’an situates itself in relation to the poetry of the “Jahileen”), and discusses gender issues (particularly infanticide of daughters). Moreover, he introduces the connection between Abraham and Muhammad which is identified as the “cornerstone to the Islamic tradition” (84), situating it relative to other monotheistic religions. Through these elements Safi notes that pre-Islamic Arabia shaped the ways in which “Islamic discourses and practices expressed themselves” (53) thus providing the “the context of Islamic practices”
Yasunari Kawabata was the first Japanese person to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. His style combined elements of classic Japanese prose with modern psychological narrative and exploration of human sexuality. Deeply influenced by the culture of his homeland, his writings capture the vivid and melancholy beauty and spirituality of Japan, while his own experiences and studies contributed to his assay into emotion.
Al Ghazali a significant person in Islam has helped shape Islam to be what it is today - a living religious tradition for the lives of its adherents. His contribution to Islam though his theories, knowledge and works have left a positive impact upon the Islamic world that continues into the present. An everlasting impact upon the faith, Muslims and the expansion of Islam to be one of the most popular religious traditions in the present world for the lives of its adherents is seen as Al Ghazali’s
Perhaps the main reason I liked this book was the unfaltering courage of the author in the face of such torture as hurts one even to read, let alone have to experience first-hand. Where men give in, this woman perseveres, and, eventually, emerges a stronger person, if that is even possible. The book’s main appeal is emotional, although sound logical arguments are also used. This book is also interesting as it shows us another face of Nasir – the so-called “champion of Arab nationalism” – who is also the enemy of pan-Islamism. The book is also proof of history repeating itself in modern-day Egypt.
The Muqaddimah is a thirteenth century historical and sociological work that was written by one of the greatest historians at the time, Ibn Khaldun. His work was used all the way up until the 19th century because no other work has given so much in-depth detail to the history and society of the Middle East in the Middle Ages and prior to that. Ibn Khaldun has read more first-hand references to what really did happen, and understands how the Caliphates fell within the Middle East. He is very critical of other historians, but this is what makes him so accurate at this point in time. He comes up with theories that emphasize the importance of accurate references, science, politics, dynasties, and religion.
Recent decades turned to textual records, and historian F.E. Peters claimed that a “quest of historical Muhammad is unlikely to yield many certainties since so little can be known for certain about Arabian Peninsula of the era”. It is evident that the prophet was an orphan of noble lineage challenging his tribe and the powers of the oneness of God in an idolatrous wilderness, but what can we really know about Muhammad? How we can known it, and if Muhammad really existed is still of question? Setting Muslim sources aside, early Greek and Syrian sources also give sufficient evidence to remove “any doubts to whether Muhammad was a real person” There is still a debate on if one can use sources for reliable accounts of Muhammad’s life, but one can argue that doubt can fill even a few pages with indisputable information. With early texts often exaggerating the face of Muhammad’s character, it seems readers cannot accept Muhammad as a man that can slaughter, rob caravans and sell women and children into slavery. In that era, it was typical for facts to be presented in an emotional and exaggerated manner to appeal to listeners. Though some claim that there is lacking Muslim literature, Muslims have a voluminous biographical literatures of earlier surviving collection called the Tabaqat (generations) of Ibn Said, which additionally contains biographies of prophet’s wives, relatives, and companions. Some sources even went to explain what the prophet liked to eat, the way he washed, and even manners of eating. With that aside, it seems Ibn Hisham’s work was successful due to the incorporation of emphasizing authentic Christian, Jew and Arabian contexts. Muslims talk of Muhammad as a “perfected human being” whose conduct people should try to